27-7-2023 (YANGON) Singaporean food and beverage group Fraser & Neave (F&N) plans to expand its beer business in Myanmar by investing S$19.2 million (495 million baht) to build a new brewery through a joint venture with the local beverage conglomerate Win Brothers. F&N already brews Chang beer in Myanmar and established a joint venture, Sapphire Brewery Myanmar Ltd (SBML), with Win Brothers in March, holding an 80% stake. The new brewery will be built on 35 acres of land leased for 50 years, but the location and the name of the beer that will be brewed were not mentioned.
Thai Beverage Plc, which controls F&N, is among the foreign partners of joint ventures paying large sums in tax to the Myanmar government for their drinks businesses. In the fourth quarter of 2021, ThaiBev’s Grand Royal paid 25.9 billion kyats (US$14 million) in specific goods tax (SGT), according to a report by the whistleblower Distributed Denial of Secrets, citing filings from the Internal Revenue Department.
ThaiBev, the brewer of Chang beer, is one of the flagship companies of Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, whose TCC Group of companies has extensive interests in property and owns the retailer Big C and the listed trading company Berli Jucker Plc. With a net worth estimated at $13.3 billion, Mr Charoen is the third richest person in Thailand, according to Forbes magazine.
F&N first entered the Myanmar beer market in 1997 by buying a 55% stake in Asia Pacific Breweries. It was later bought out by its partners, the military-owned Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd, for US$560 million and exited the beer business in 2015, two years after being acquired by ThaiBev. However, ThaiBev continued to expand in Myanmar and acquired a 75% stake in Myanmar Distillery Co, the maker of the popular local whiskey brand Grand Royal, for US$1 billion in 2017. F&N re-entered the Myanmar beer market in 2019, investing US$70 million to set up Emerald Brewery in Yangon to produce Chang beer with a Myanmar partner.
